Friday, December 24, 2010

a few thoughts

I went and bought some painting supplies today. Heavy gel medium was part of it, it's for use with acrylics and can be used underneath the colour as a sort of sculpturing medium or mixed with colour as well.

The only thing is that heavy gel medium, if you ask for it here, is pronounced heavy h*ll medium. Summons a different imagine somehow.

Can I also say that I am delighted to report that I am again reading Murikami in Catalan - Kafka at the Beach - and I understand about 98% of the words. That is like a miracle and makes me SUPER happy. The only thing is that Murikami is much creepier when you understand (nearly) every word. OOooooooh, the books are kinda...alarmin'! It is also weird that the translator has sometimes put in Catalan food in place of Japonese food. Has the character eating croquetes for instance, a particularly loathsome Catalan food. Kind of like eating wallpaper paste, breaded and lightly deep fried. Can't imagine it going down well in Japan somehow.

Probably some of you remember trying to go to bed on Christmas Eve. For most of you that's a fun memory. For me, a big fat fun memory. My kids are trying to do just that. I remember lying there, grinning in the dark, dying to go to sleep as fast as I could, which of course slowed the whole thing down.

Ohhhh, I just adore Christmas.

My kids are lying there, stockings at their feet, right this second. Love em.

Do not love the odd smell there is up in my painting space though. Hmmm, smells like something's going off. I'll have to explore, when I'd rather paint.

5 comments:

Merry Christmas to you! I just lay with my son who was crying uncontrollably. Didn't want to go to sleep etc. Alas. I'm trying my best to hold the magic, whilst finishing up last minute wrapping (I spent 10 of my waking hours yesterday looking after other people's children - along with my own - some of it unexpectedly), baking and magic-making. I just want to soak my sore back and crawl under the covers waiting for Santa myself!

OH Kim, I am sorry he was so upset. Sometimes they just crash and have to cry to deal with it all, I hope it was nothing more serious and that you had a nice Christmas at the end of it all, both of you.

JG, It is lovely isn't it. We had a very merry Christmas and a very peaceful Boxing day too.

Congrats on the reading. About the translation, it's always a difficult exercise. What to translate? How? How much? I remember the translations of some episodes of the Simpsons, for example, where the French translators took the liberty of trying to transpose American cultural references to French ones. I guess it has to do with accessibility. But that's also why I'd rather see things in the original version (although I'm not fluent in Japanese, or Catalan, or plenty of other languages...)

The latest

Who???

A Canadian sailor aground in Catalonia, Spain. We used to live in Toronto, then we got on our boat and sailed down to the Bahamas where we spent most of our time for three years and now we are here in Spain, outside of Barcelona, learning the languages, eating and doing our thing.
Yup, we still miss the boat but life is good.